Our Story

Brightpearl was founded by Chris Tanner and Andy Mulvenna who needed a solution to help them manage their longboard business as it grew and became more complex.

Chris Tanner and Andy Mulvenna became friends as university undergraduates in 1999. After graduation, Chris founded a skateboard company called Lush Longboards. While running Lush, Chris became increasingly frustrated with the complexity of running his multichannel, global business and began looking for software that could help. He quickly saw that existing options were either too expensive or limited in what they could do. So in 2006, Chris started developing Brightpearl and as he was developing it, realized this could help many other retailers who were struggling with some of the same challenges. In the summer of 2007, Brightpearl was piloted with its first customer with great success. Chris decided to sell Lush so he could focus on developing Brightpearl. He contacted Andy and they reunited to get Brightpearl off the ground.

Our founders felt the pressure of trying to manage orders, inventory and customers across multiple channels, while still maintaining great service. They knew that if they didn’t have the right system in place they would never be able to grow successfully - no matter how many hours they put in.

The early experiences of our founders form the backbone of our company values today. Our software and services have been developed thanks to first hand experience of what it’s really like to be a growing retailer.

In the more recent years, we’ve continued to follow our original roots whilst accelerating our growth through acquiring funding, developing the product, and introducing experienced technology and business leader, Derek O’Carroll as CEO of Brightpearl. We’ve raised a total of $30.5 million in funding to continue to invest in helping retailers grow their business with the help of Brightpearl.

We’re supported by strong, engaged investors

Brightpearl has now grown to 1,400 customers worldwide who processed more than $2.5 billion dollars of orders with Brightpearl.

We continue to be motivated and inspired by retailers pursuing their dreams. We’re constantly amazed and impressed by their stories and are passionate about helping them accelerate their growth and profits. We know we’re asking our customers to trust us by putting Brightpearl at the heart of their business. We’re humbled by this trust; it pushes us to improve every day.